BuzzFeed Responds To Onion Article

An article titled “BuzzFeed Writer Resigns In Disgrace After Plagiarizing ‘10 Llamas Who Wish They Were Models’” made the rounds among members of the media on Twitter today.

The story was published on the satirical news website TheOnion and said BuzzFeed staff writer Tim Mills “resigned his position Wednesday following widespread accusations that he plagiarized content in the recent slideshow.” The story reported that media reporter Jim Romenesko first discovered the plagiarism when he “noticed several striking similarities between the BuzzFeed post and a November 2011 slideshow on the Cheezburger Network titled ‘These Llamas Have It Better Than You.’”

This wasn’t the first feature on llamas to appear on the site. Ashley McCollum, publicist for BuzzFeed, said the website has been featuring llamas since it started. “We’ve been covering llamas since the early days of BuzzFeed,” she told FishbowlDC. “The Onion trolled us… A+ job.”

Mills tweeted many times about his “plagiarism.” Here are a few examples: